Recently, my roommates have been playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and even Mario Kart. I’m not too interested in video games and  I wanted to find some easy apps too play on my computer or phone when I sat on the couch with them. Strangely enough, both of the apps that I have downloaded have some pretty strong tie-ins to science. 

Politics, religion, economic and all other things aside, how do you view earth? Personally, I see it as a unique opportunity in a void of complete nothing. I think we all get so caught up in the day-to-day that it is hard to really think about what Earth and life means. I look at earth as home and as a place where I can take any and every opportunity to become the best,  experience the best and encourage the best. I look at it as an opportunity for anything that I see possible.

Last year, when the tinder craze began, we all wanted to match with some of our campus crushes. Nothing was better than getting the notification that the other person also said that they liked you, but nothing was worse than waiting for days to see if your crush would like you back, and then realizing they swiped left(confirming they weren’t interested). THEY SAID NO. They didn’t like you back. You were rejected.

Well, scientists at the University of Michigan Medical school have conducted an experiment very similar to tinder, but looked at rejections effect on the brain.

The scientists “asked 18 adults to look at photos and fictitious personal profiles of hundreds of other adults. Each selected some who they might be most interested in romantically, as they would do on a typical online dating website. Afterwards, when the participants were lying in a PET scanner, they were informed that the individuals they found attractive and interesting were not interested in them.”(Saul)

During the brain scans, the scientists looked at mu-opioid receptor in the brain, which is most closely linked to the part of the brain that is activated when there is physical pain. The scientists found that receptors of those that were rejected were activated in the same way that they would be if the body were to be in physical pain. (Saul)

 Dr. Hsu, a lead researcher shared that this was the first time any sort of reaction like this in the human brain, saying: “In general, opioids have been known to be released during social distress and isolation in animals, but where this occurs in the human brain has not been shown until now.”

One part of the researchers method which I did not like was that they told the people involved in the study that that the profiles they were shown were not real and neither was the rejection. It would be interesting if the researchers used real situations and long term examples like tinder, and see what the effects would be on the brain.

Over the last 50 years or so, there has been an explosion and infestation of Jellyfish in the waters all around us. Whether it is off the east coast here in the United States, the bays of Australia or South Asia, and in the rough waters surrounding Ireland, Jelly Fish populations have exploded.

An article on Quartz.com by, Gwynn Guilford identified that scientists are puzzled how all sorts of Jellies have been spreading, but that they have identified several reasons why these glooby- globby, and sometimes even killer, Jelly Fish have continued to grow geographically and in population.

1. Jelly Fish eat a lot and eat anything that crosses their paths, like the Comb Jelly Fish. The comb jellyfish eat ten times it’s body weight a day. The Comb Jellies eat so much, that they are even attributed to eating a giant portion of the Black Sea’s fish population, destroying the fishing industry of the region with it. Jelly fish even eat the eggs of some of their natural competitors, causing an impact to fish populations. (Guilford)

2. Jelly Fish make babies fast, and a lot of them. Jellyfish essentially release polyps, mini-sacks of multiple jellyfish. And these polyps even clone themselves, creating an almost exponential increase in jellyfish.  (Guilford)

3. No one is really chasing after them or trying to eat them. Jelly fish have only a few natural predators, such as sea turtles and salmon. However, their predators have been dwindling in numbers due to several reasons, opening the door for Jelly Fish populations to be untouched prey. Also, because Jelly’s are often somehow brought in to new geographic areas, some live in peace with no predators in sight. (Guilford)

4. Jelly Fish are hard to kill. As much as it would seem as a good idea to just try and kill the millions of jelly fish that are killing off fish populations or infecting eco systems, it really isn’t that easy. Some scientists have even discovered that trying to shred Jelly Fish up, actually caused them to become artificially fertilized and ended up creating more jelly fish.(Guilford) (Link to article about shredding jelly fish)

While figuring out the explosion of jelly fish blooms is important, it’s also important to know how the increase in jelly fish blooms has directly effected us as humans. The article on Quartz had a great image showing the impact of jelly fish on the worlds human population, including capsizing a ship off of Japan and limiting the output of Nuclear Power Plants in the United States.

If Jellyfish are having this strong of an effect on humans, maybe it is important to narrow down exactly what factors are causing them to grow in population and spread around the world. I think it would be hard for scientists to do experimental studies on this because it is at a global scale, but will observation or correlation really help solve the problem? 

I guess NBCnews Science and I were on the exact same page when we put together the pieces of Miley Cyrus’s new music video, really funny vines of college bros swinging on a giant pendulum and the Google Doodle in honor of the birthday of the man who created pendulum.

So everyone is talking about it, Miley is swinging on it, but what is it?  I know a pendulum is something that swings around but what exactly is it?

A pendulum, “Mechanically, is one of the simplest experiments possible: a heavy weight attached to a very long string or cable that is free to swing in any vertical plane.”(Sparkes, 2013) The weight is then pulled back and set into motion, but without any horizontal force. It is then let go and left free to swing. The pendulum then swings and appears to be changing direction over time, however, the earth rotating beneath it makes it seem like its traveling in a direction. The pendulum, in fact, is really still swinging on the “same plane relative to the rest of the Universe.” (Saprkes, 2013)

Well rock on Miley, you are literally swinging on the same plane relative to the rest of the Universe! Who would have thought?

But seriously, Google honored physicist Leon Foucault because he used a pendulum to prove that earth was rotating on an axis. (Davidson, 2013)

Check out this video of a pendulum at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, it’s very calming to watch, but not as soulful as Miley’s music video for Wrecking Ball.

I  try to gather myself every night and think about my schedule the next day, but usually I end up on facebook or texting a friend and completely forgetting that I have an assignment due for class the next day or have a meeting in willard. Well, orangutans might be more on top of their plans for tomorrow much more than I am.

Finally, a part of mankind is really far away, beyond the solar system. On September 12, 2013, NASA confirmed that Voyager 1, a space exploration craft, had left the solar system and entered interstellar space which is about 12 Billion Miles from earth. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and was sent on a mission to observe the solar system. Visiting both Saturn and Jupiter(and one of it’s moons,) Voyager I is the first man made object to exit the solar system.(Harwood,2013)